


Inherent Violence (and again now, and now, and now)

by laudatenium



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Anal Sex, Character Study, Darkish Harry, M/M, Pining, Rimming, he's a mess, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:43:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5247047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laudatenium/pseuds/laudatenium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants it, all of it.  He wants to lock him away forever, keep his warmth and light secluded, reserved only for himself.  He wants to posses Eggsy, to own him entirely.</p><p>But he can’t.  He’s slaughtered men who do the same to others.</p><p>On occasion, he finds it funny how he is willing to excuse his own dark impulses, when he would destroy anyone who tried the same.  But selective morality is a common feature of man’s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inherent Violence (and again now, and now, and now)

**Author's Note:**

> Secondary title and lines within from “The Thought Fox” by Ted Hughes. Other lines within from “On the Shoulders of Freaks” by Henry Phillips.
> 
> FYI, these are not necessarily my views on all matters. Just exploring what Harry's might be.

Humans are animals.  It isn’t a popular thing to acknowledge, but it is true.

 

There is surprise when animals turn “savage”, but it shouldn’t be so.  If nothing is savage, everything is.  Humans have for centuries attempted to stifle the beast within.  For we are beasts, every one of us.

 

Physically, humans are pathetic.  There is always some animal that can run faster, see farther, is stronger.  Human have no pelt to protect them in the winter, their teeth are weak and brittle, their muscles are not good for lifting much more than their own body weight, their fingers snap easily and are tipped in nails that do little more than leave rents on thin skin.

 

Yet in the game of evolution, humans have won.

 

Because humans are aware of their weaknesses, they can do their best to overcome them.  Lack of fur lead to stealing the pelts of animals with thicker pelts.  Lack of teeth and claws and strength led to weapons, stones and bone and metal shaped and sharpened to kill.  Physical weakness lead to mental strength, being able to think and understand and process.  Understanding their own weaknesses lead to understand the weaknesses of other animals, and other men.

 

The only thing humanity has that puts them above everything else is intelligence.

 

But the problem with self awareness is it can lead to self delusion.  The ability to fashion a tool made teeth and claws inferior, not the inspiration.  The ability to cultivate vegetation made scavenging less efficient, so scavenging became shameful.  The ability to wrap one’s self in another’s skin made nudity a sin, not the natural state.  The ability to build shelter from mud and stone and vague ideals made civilization.  The ability to exercise control over all other animals made humanity above them.

 

And it has only grown.  Mud bled to stone bled to wood bled to sheetrock bled to steel.  Raw pelts bled to treated skins bled to woven fabric bled to tailored suits and rules of dressing.  Metal detectors were devised to keep weapons out of certain areas, but the makers simply created ceramic guns and plastic guns and explosives to destroy cities. 

 

Man eats beast on a plate made of burned bone, gilded and flower-patterned, accompanied by aged fruit in a container made of superheated sandstone, and implements of the hunt have been made smaller and tamer and have been gilded as well.

 

It is not enough to keep simple methods of protocol or interaction.  Man goes so far as to crate rules and shadowy things called laws, all meant to reign in natural impulses.  People are given different forms of address depending on the circumstances of one’s birth.  Humanity is taught killing is bad.

 

But oh, does man knows how good it feels.

 

For every charitable thought towards a fellow human being, there is also an animalistic urge to rip, tear, eliminate.  Not in every human, mind you, but the mass consciousness of humanity evens itself out.

 

What it boils down to is nurture versus nature.  Nurture is our learned behavior, handed down for millennia as human nature, but in all reality, humanity’s nature is too look out for one’s own welfare and to thrive.  Some will argue man is inherently charitable, that what sets humans apart is their willingness to care for the needs of other humans.  But bears defend their own as well.  It is for selfish reasons that we look out for others: pride, discomfort, pressure.  It is a sad fact that unless people have to look at it, they don’t care.  People believe they can find themselves in helping others.  But nothing is crueler to man than fellow man.  Man is the source of most of man’s suffering.

 

Be honest: have you ever delighted or found at least some form of morbid fascination in the misfortune and suffering of others?

 

If you answer yes, it is simple human reaction.

 

If you answer no, you are lying.

 

Do not despair.  We are wired to find enjoyment in other’s failing.  Why is a man falling from a roof because of sheer idiocy so amusing to us?  Because the ancient part of us hopes he will die.  Nothing you could possibly do to change that. 

 

Manners are a leash, a wet blanket, an electric shock designed to tame the animal within.  But man is still an animal.

 

Manners maketh man.

 

But underneath, we are all savage.

 

 

 

The most controlled men are also the most savage.

 

He knows this.  He is one of them.  How lucky it is that they found him when they did, and were able to mold the killer within.  Or else he might be one of the faces splashed across the headlines, a body count beneath him.

 

Or maybe not.  He can’t know.  This is all he knows.  And there has never been any point in looking into the what-ifs.

 

He remembers his first kill.  Always an important milestone in a man’s life.  The car waiting on Downing Street, dark professional waiting for the Prime Minister.  Unseen pistol, but he knows it’s there.  He approaches, brushes against the man, grabs his wrist in apology.  The poison in the adhesive patch killed him before he could even be affronted.  The man stumbled, and he grabed him in a bastardization of an embrace.

 

The stern woman in dark blue passed, unaffected, uncaring, off to a wedding.

 

On a whim, he bought a copy of the Sun, proclaiming a fairy tale.  He pinned it to the wall, and something within him growled in satisfaction.  Mr. Pickle sniffed at his fingers, and he scratched the dog’s ears absently.

 

And so it began.

 

 

 

He doesn’t feel bad.

 

The thing about taking a life is that it is natural.  We are simply taught it is bad.  Almost all natural instinct is considered bad.  Murder, fighting, pain, pleasure, sex.  Once one comes to terms with the realities of nature, the guilt is gone.

 

Nature isn’t shameful.  It’s simply the way things are.

 

He knows the others don’t necessarily feel the same way.  Some of them have a hard time, and spend their time coming up with reasons.  Still others relish it, and simply enjoy it.

 

He sees it in simple terms: would this man kill me?

 

If the answer is yes, he lets nature decide who wins.

 

He hasn’t lost yet.

 

 

 

But he’s not completely unfeeling.

 

 

 

Because the reptilian part of his brain has begun to speak.  Only one word, but so different from the harsh snarling that was its method of communication for so long.  It terrifies him as it beats a tattoo in his skull, marking him:

 

_Eggsy._

_Eggsy._

_Eggsy._

 

 

 

Love is a dangerous thing.

 

It doesn’t take long to worm its way under skin and into one’s soul.  Soon enough, it can overtake and enrapture one until nothing matters but the object of all that emotion.

 

If one is not careful.

 

He has never been careful.  Nothing about him had ever been careful.  Cautious, yes, in certain circumstances, but never careful.  One can be cautious without being careful.  Careful implied care was involved.  Which never seemed to be a factor in his life.

 

He can’t pin a date to it.  There is this idea that love happens all at once, that affection buds and blooms in the span of a singular moment, when one’s heart becomes devoted to another in its entirety.  Perhaps for some, but he found it a gradual slide, fully aware of the entirety of the proceedings, yet kitten-weak to stop.  Also a tad unwilling.  Gradual, but ironclad and swift, and by the time he has his love flushed and beautiful, at ease in his home, hanging on to his advice and praise, unaware of the depth of his mentor’s affections, he has fallen, deeply and for eternity.

 

His love, because what else could he call him?  Some people would avoid thinking the word, but he has always been frighteningly honest to himself.  It does no good to lie, not when no one else will ever know.  The crack of bones feels good under his hands.  There is a heady power in watching the light drain from another’s eyes.  The angelic beauty of his protégée enraptures him.   He is tired. 

 

Simple truths.

 

Merlin called him middle aged, but that was wrong.  Middle age implies the halfway mark of life.  If one lives to seventy, it is thirty-five.  If one lives to eighty, it is forty.  He is fifty-four.  So unless he lives to one hundred and eight, he is well-past middle age.

 

Approaching mortality does not bother him.  It isn't welcoming like some say, but reassuring all the same.  Death would be something cool and comforting.  The unknown.  Terror for many, but for a man used to living on the razor’s edge of life, of brashly storming into places with no idea of what awaits him, it is just another mission, another unavoidable situation.

 

But then light graced his sight, and now the darkness and the cold frighten him.

 

Death is for mortals.  Not glinting demigods, filled with breathless life, with eyes drawn from rivers and hearts wrought from gentleness salvaged from brutality.

 

In death, there would be no Eggsy.

 

Lucifer fell.  The greatest of the angels, felled by pride.

 

Galahad never fell.  But now he has.

 

But maybe it was never the right name for him.  Purity.  Someone, somewhere, is laughing.

 

 

 

“Wot?  You’s _joking_.”  Eggsy is sprawled across the chesterfield, flushed and slightly tipsy, and looking like he belongs.  On his couch, in his house, in his life.

 

“I assure you, I am not.”  He picks up the empty glasses and moves to the bar, because he likes this slightly wobbly, lose version of Eggsy.  He wants it, all of it.  He wants to lock him away forever, keep his warmth and light secluded, reserved only for himself.  He wants to posses Eggsy, to own him entirely.

 

But he can’t.  He’s slaughtered men who do the same to others.

 

On occasion, he finds it funny how he is willing to excuse his own dark impulses, when he would destroy anyone who tried the same.  But selective morality is a common feature of man’s.

 

What he needs to do is put it out of his mind.  Focus on what will be in less than twenty-four hours from now.  How soon it will be before Eggsy will be . . . .

 

 

 

Humans have no natural venom, so we have devised our own that is created by our minds, and affects only the minds of others.

 

It _appears_ to have physical reactions on occasion.  If the agony in Eggsy’s eyes is any indication.

 

 

 

He sits in a church, full of spewing venom and hate, and ponders what he will say to Eggsy when he returns.  How he will make up for the hate he has spewed.

 

Hate and love are not opposite emotions.  They are simply two sides of passion.  Passion and apathy are the opposites.

 

Passionate men are dangerous.  But not quite as dangerous as the apathetic ones.

 

 

 

All goes red.

 

All goes white.

 

All goes.  And only the animal remains.

 

 

 

The dull roar of a shot, a rippling of pain across this temple, the crack of his skull under pavement.  Then, nothing.

 

 

 

He wakes in a familiar room.  Carved oak four poster, with crimson velvet drapes and thick wool blankets across the bed.  The room is the same as it has always been, the ticket stubs and seashells of his childhood lining the shelves.  Model fighter jets hung painstakingly from the Victorian crown molding.  Dusty children’s books with cracked bindings, piled up but never packed away or disposed off.  Nothing much had changed since he left for school at the age of seven, when his father had declared him old enough to fend for himself.  He had sat on the brass bedstead in the connecting room, crying in Nanny Flannigan’s apron not to leave him.  She had smiled sadly and asked him to sit on her packing case to close it.

 

Even after his mother’s death a decade ago, he had refused to abandon his childhood room in favor of the master suite.  He never intended to live in the house again, so why waste money on clearing out his parents' rooms?

 

The room is dusty, certainly, and the blankets imply Merlin’s hand in the proceedings.  There is an intravenous drip taped to the back of his hand, and a turban-like cocoon of bandages cradling his skull.  The bag of saline suspended from the metal stand looks alien in the shell of his formal childhood.

 

He has the drip ripped out and his robe on before the nurse can find him.

 

 

 

Merlin’s data packet spells everything out: they’d recovered him from a hospital in Bowling Green and had him shipped home.  He had suffered a massive concussion, but Valentine’s bullet had only clipped his temple before thankfully ricocheting off the ridge of bone, leaving a lot of blood but not much else.  It had been the fall to the ground that had compounded the concussion and cracked his skull.  The Kentucky doctors had fixed what they could, shaved his head, and now all he can do is wait for the fractures to heal.  A nurse, Gillian, has been assigned to assist him around the house.

 

The reports confuse him, as he can’t remember murdering Richmond Valentine with his henchwoman’s leg, so he seeks the personnel status report, which spells out the state of affairs in the Kingmen’s ranks.

 

 **Arthur III** **(deceased)**

 **Galahad IV** **→ Arthur IV (injured)**

 **Merlin II** **→ Merlin II & Regent (active)**

**Percival IV (active)**

**Bors V (injured)**

**Tristan III (deceased)** **→ Tristan IV UNFILLED**

 **Gareth IV (deceased)** **→ Gareth V UNFILLED**

 **Gawain V (deceased)** **→ Gawain VI UNFILLED**

**Kay VI (injured)**

**Cardoc VI (deceased)** **→ Cardoc VII UNFILLED**

**Lancelot IX (active)**

**Failed Candidate for Lancelot IX** **→ Galahad V (active)**

 

Four dead agents.  Three, including himself, injured enough to be out of commission.  Which left four people active, two of which are greener than algae.  Merlin isn’t even supposed to take field positions anymore, so that really leaves three agents active with a regent over them.

 

Scribbled in red ink along the bottom is “The King is dead.  Long live the King.”

 

 

 

Merlin had seen fit to give Eggsy his codename.

 

It stings slightly, like the executor of a will giving the benefactors the bits and bobs they had been left.  He had not been there to pass the mantle to his protégé.  But it feels right, Eggsy slipping into the skin Harry had worn for decades.  Merlin had certainly made the decision Harry would have made.

 

The four instances of “UNFILLED” shine accusingly back at him.

 

 

 

 _“No, Harry.”_   Merlin’s burr is thick with exhaustion, but he holds firm.

 

“I’m Arthur – “

 

_“‘Regent’ means the king is not able to fulfill his roll, so someone else has to do it.  I pulled the short straw.”_

 

“Oh, please.  You and Percival duke it out to see who had to do it?”  It certainly is an amusing idea.

 

_“Rock paper scissors, more like.”_

 

“Riveting.  But I’m awake now.  Crawl back into your cavern, and let me get to my job.”

 

 _“No, Harry.  You were unconscious for two weeks, and it’s gonna be another six before your skull is healed.  That is the_ minimum _amount of time you’ll be out, if you don’t develop complications.”_

 

“I am determined to not develop complications.”

 

Merlin’s silence is as baleful as his glare.  _“Wonderful.  See you in six weeks.”_

 

“And why the hell am I not in the infirmary?  Why the fuck am I in Gloucestershire?”

 

_“Because I need our new Galahad out in the field, not mooning over your hospital bed.  Plus, you’re a pain to deal with in recovery.  I don’t need you tripping over yourself to –“_

 

“Oh, that’s a steaming crock of shit and you know it.”

 

 _“Take a walk!  Pick blackberries or something else suitably English, you twat.  No hunting, no riding, no exertion of any kind.  Am I clear?  I know you don’t like it, but the more you rest, the faster you’ll be back in action.”_   Merlin pauses to snort.  _“Would you for once get it through your thick skull?  We need you healthy.  Six weeks is too short, but it’s what you need.”_

 

“At least explain to me what state we’re in right now.”

 

_“We’re thin on the ground, but we always have been.  The world’s in complete chaos, and right now we can only spare resources for the most vital of missions.  Lancelot and Galahad have been doing solo missions already, when you know they should both be on tailing detail for the first six months.  They manage wonderfully, but they’re still green.  Kay had his kneecaps shattered, so he’s out for a while, and while Bors is only suffering from a few broken ribs, he has decided that he wants to retire, which would leave us with half of the Table to fill.  Christ.  The best thing to do at this point would be to start training, but I can’t focus on that until you’re on the Throne.  What do you think?”_

 

“None of the failed Lancelot candidates are up to snuff?”

 

_“We’ve got the only two fit to be Kingsmen from that pool.  Of the failed ones, if they had the chops, they had egos.  I wouldn’t advise any of them.”_

 

“We’ll need to scrounge up new blood then.”

 

That is a weighty prospect.  They’d barely been able to scrounge up nine prospects for Lancelot.  And the children of the privileged are only getting more spoiled.  Yet it is the perfect time to rework face of the Table.  Kingsman had changed little in the century since its inception, but the world has turned on its ear.  To hear the last Arthur say it, the world is in need of things that remain constant in the face of sweeping change.  However true it is, Harry doesn't believe Kingsman is the place to become a stalwart of the past.

 

Adapt or die.  The other kings had pushed it off, but if anything is to survive, change needs to occur.

 

Adapt or die.  They taught it with words and trick wires and faulty igniters.  To survive as a Kingsman, one must be able to take everything and rework it into a new plan.

 

Adapt or die.  It should not be only thought of as something for a man to do on his own, but for man as a whole to remember.

 

Adapt or die.

 

_“We’ll figure it out at a later date.”_

 

“Good.”  Harry shifts uncomfortably in his oxblood leather chair.  “How is he doing?”

 

Merlin, bless him, does not hesitate.  _“Remarkably well._   _Some would call him a foolhardy idiot, but let’s say inventive, shall we?  He pesters me about you whenever he can.  Part of the reason you’re out there is that he doesn’t know about the house.  Were you in London or HQ, you’d have a very attentive nursemaid_.”

 

“You gave him my codename.”  It isn’t a question.

 

_“My job as Regent involves making decisions that Arthur would make in his stead when Arthur is out of commission.  You’ve been Regent several times, like when Chester had his bypass operation, you should know.  I knew that if anyone was to be Galahad, he would be your choice.  If it makes you feel any better, the brat fought me a bit, saying he wanted to wait until you were better before being Knighted, but he understood the severity of the situation, as should you.”_

 

It does make him feel better, far more than he’d ever acknowledge but Merlin likely knew.  The wizard always knew.

 

The information that Eggsy is waiting for him sends a rush of endorphins buzzing under his mangled skull.

 

“I understand.  But now that I’m up, I want daily briefing calls from you, and don’t make any major decisions without my imput.”

 

_“Like I would dare.”_

 

“Good.  We finished?”

 

_“I should hope  so.  Remember what I said Harry.”_

 

“Which part?”

 

_“All of it.  Get better soon.  We’re paying Gillian out the nose to put up with you, so go be a pain in her arse.”_

 

 

 

He shaves, takes tea, examines the papers he has been sent, looses himself for a while in the absolutions of man.  Distracts himself from the growing voice than insists he go back to London and bury himself in Eggsy’s pert arse.

 

By now, he’s used to ignoring it.  Still, it never goes away.

 

 

 

He goes out riding, against Merlin’s instructions.  He takes a shotgun, again against Merlin’s instructions.  No dogs allowed anymore, but it’s fine.  He never liked hunting with them.  He foregoes a helmet in favor of pulling a tweed cap low over the bandages.  Gillian protests meekly, then heads back into the house to smoke and watch reruns of _Coronation Street._

 

Trajan is old, but is still fit and as tempestuous as a stallion can be.  Harry rides him hard, because that’s how he likes to ride, and that’s how stallions like to be ridden.  He made sure to keep a half-dozen horses at the house, cared for by the man who had always looked after the Hart horses, who had been old when Harry was young.

 

They follow the familiar trails through the wooded portions of the grounds.  The blood in his skull is pounding, the quiet before the pounce.  A bit of dull red flashes through the undergrowth, and they’re off.

 

The huff of Trajan’s breath fills his ears and the pull of the muscles in his flanks work beneath Harry’s thighs.  The tense and uncoil, the freedom it brings.  Sex and hunting.  How they always went hand in hand.  The interconnectedness of beings through exertion.  But now one is mostly outmoded.  Not hard to tell which is better.

 

Harry pulls the reigns, and Trajan stops.  The horse shudders as they watch the fox slip away.  Trajan is disgruntled, but Harry soothes him with firm pats to his sweaty neck.

 

“Maybe next time,” he tells his mount, and they make their way back to the stables. 

 

Trajan gets a thorough brushing, and Harry leaves him to his water and feed.  He hangs the tweed jacket up, and unloads the gun, placing it back in its rack. 

 

He does not attempt hunting again, but rides Trajan to exhaustion every day.

 

The leaves turn gold at their edges, and his knees ache with the chill.  He presses on.

 

It is still not enough.

 

 

 

Six weeks to the day of him waking, Gillian tells him what pills he still has to take and bids him good riddance as she drives away with a cheery wave.  Harry packs a small bag and an attaché case and boards the train at Cheltenham, bound for London.  He stares at his reflection in the window, hair cropped brutally short to avoid the patchiness that had been left by razor-happy surgeons.  His skull is still tender, and prone to blasting headaches, but the only visible damage remaining is obscured beneath some thick bandaging on his left temple.  His glasses rub against them with every twitch of his head.

 

His body is weary, yet so eager to return to what it has longed for.  But what does it long for?  And is there ever a return to something you never really had?

 

London is limping, but it’s a resilient city.  The hospitals are still overrun, but most patients have been moved into long-term care.  Most citizens have scars of some sort, but broken bones are mostly healed.  The largest change is the simmering of anger that lingers like the pea soupers of old.

 

Few details of what _actually_ happened have been released.  The official story is that Valentine was a madman who took as many world leaders and VIPs captive as possible, and killed many of them when the issues with the effectiveness of the sim cards arose.  Governments unwilling to reveal their cooperation in the plan painted their bosses as martyrs as they scrambled and squabbled to fill the power vacuum.

 

Nothing new there.

 

But the horrors of what has occurred have scarred the psyche of the world’s population.  The experience of having all higher thought switched off and having the suppressed nature of humanity exposed sits like a specter over everyone.  Murder and battery rates have risen approximately thirty percent, and diagnoses of PTSD are rampant.  One of the only good things to have resulted is a better understanding towards veterans.

 

An alertness has creeped into the populace, a distrust and uneasiness at their surroundings.  Preparing for the possibility of another lashing out brought more people seeing threats where there were none.

 

It is a dangerous time to be a spy.  Anyone noticing anything is the greatest danger in their line of work, because wide exposure cannot be “fixed”.  Jumpiness is a two-edged sword, and one that is best not to be taken down from the wall.  Bullets from the gun of a nervous trigger finger can kill just as effectively as an experienced finger.  Hoping they won’t hit you won’t leave you any less dead.

 

Doubt in personal agility is also effective.  Humans are weak, but not as weak as some might think.  Most people do not _honestly_ believe they have the capability to strangle someone, but practically anyone could if they wanted to.  _Really_ wanted to.

 

With the horror at seeing what their hands are capable of comes the _knowledge_ of what their hands are capable of, and that knowledge is a dangerous power.  Humanity is very willing to be de-clawed when unaware of the effectiveness of their claws.  But cats trust nature and know how to use them, and thus yowl at their loss.  Humans may not trust nature, but they are a bit more aware of it now.

 

Harry refuses to feel threatened.  Because no passerby on the streets holds any real threat to him.  Knowledge is power, and Harry knows he is one of the fittest.  His time in recuperation has not left him any less capable of what he could do before.  Maybe it would show in a fight against a worthy opponent, but there is a certain lack of them as he makes his way to the shop.

 

Things here are the same, on the surface.  The bolts of fabric do not care who is King and who has died.  The waxed Table tells no tales of blood or poison.

 

Merlin is waiting behind the Throne.  He greets Harry with a brief nod.  The other chairs are empty.

 

“I thought the meeting was at twelve,” Harry asks by way of greeting.

 

“It’s at twelve thirty, actually.”

 

Harry checks his watch.  _12;17._   It’s an old trick that Merlin uses, but sparingly.  Usually only when there’s something he wants to discuss.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Galahad.”

 

For a moment, Harry thinks that Merlin is talking to him, but that’s not right, not anymore, and Merlin never forgets.

 

He’s heard the term cold dread, but to him it has always felt like an icicle being impaled into his liver.  “What’s wrong with Eggsy?”

 

Merlin hesitates.  “I don’t know.  Exactly.  But he’s been . . . cagey, since I informed him you were returning.  I just wanted to warn you to be careful when approaching him.”

 

Harry slumps down heavily as he takes the Throne.  “Why are you telling me this?”

 

“Because I don’t want you to ruin this.”

 

Before Harry can ask what exactly he means by that, Bors comes in, pushing Kay’s wheelchair.  He grunts unceremoniously, “What’re the new seating assignments?”

 

Merlin pulls up the seating chart.  “Well, you’re seated by length of service.  Arthur always gets one.  Percival moves up to two, Bors, you get three, Kay gets four.  Lancelot at five, Galahad will be at six.  And unless you’re hiding any spare Kingsmen you happen to have lying around, that’s all we’ll have.”

 

Kay smiles weakly as Bors sets about shoving the antique chair into the windows and jamming the wheelchair under the Table.  “I have to say, it’s odd not referring to you as Galahad, Arthur.  But the new boy . . . he’ll do.”

 

Kay is kind-hearted, but never one to dole out the complements.  “He’ll do” is high praise from him.

 

“Eh,” Bors grunts as he marches around the table to take his own seat.  “He’s foolhardy.  Cheeky.  But he’s good.  His blood might be mud, but my nephew’s pristine arse is falling out of nightclubs, reeking of vodka.  _Vodka_.  I could understand gin.  The boy is at least _doing_ something with his life.  I will say I like the girl better.”

 

Merlin does not look up from his clipboard.  “Everyone likes Lancelot better.”

 

Harry let out the teensiest sigh of relief.  Bors was the most prejudicial Knight left standing, but if Lancelot and Eggsy have made good impressions . . . it bodes well.

 

More noises from the door, and Percival and Lancelot enter.  Percival makes eye contact with Harry for a brief moment, before nodding slightly.  Percival’s version of a warm greeting.  Lancelot is focused on someone down the hall and out of sight, with whom she seems to be having a silent battle of wills.  With a distressed sigh, she turns sharply to the assembled Knights.

 

Lancelot smiles tightly.  “I’m sorry, everyone.  Galahad is being . . . _difficult_.”  She turns sharply, her hissed threats echoing through the high ceilings.  _“Eggsy, if you don’t get your cowardly arse in here right this moment, I am going to flay you and turn you into my new ottoman.”_

 

Eggsy’s voice echoes down the passageway, but Harry is unable to make any of the words out.  Lancelot moves towards the sound of his voice, still hissing, the words _“face him eventually”_ wafting in.  Bors chuckles and waggles his eyebrows in Harry’s direction.

 

“ _Rox,_ I _told_ you, I was – oh, good day, gentlemen.”  Eggsy quite effortlessly slips from his blurred natural cadence into a manufactured posh one, and Harry mourns as he stares at a warped mirror.

 

Eggsy’s soft bristling hair is tamed and parted and shellacked, harvest gold in the muted lighting of the dining room.  His glasses are black frames, not faux tortoiseshell, and Eggsy is more compact muscled strength than himself, but otherwise, Eggsy is his twin.  Navy pinstripes that Harry selected, the Kingsman tie glinting from his throat.  Bottom button of his jacket open, just like Harry taught him.

 

Shifting brown/green/grey/blue eyes fix him on the spot, and Harry is the fox caught in the hunter’s sights.

 

Something has changed.  Within himself.

 

He has never been the fox.  But Eggsy has been his entire life.

 

The urge to run, to leap, to chuck his chair into the window and jump.  To fall.

 

He’s already fallen.

 

Eggsy and Lancelot take their seats, and he distantly hears the others greeting them.

 

He snaps out of it.

 

“This needn’t take long.  Our biggest issue right now?  Knights.  We need them.  This isn’t going to be standard recruitment.  First off, discussion has circled for years about upping the number of seats at the Table.  I propose the addition of Lamorak and Bedivere, to be filled with either retirees or as transitional spots.  Bors, we can’t lose you yet, but would you be willing to transfer to a lower-impact position?”

 

Bors let an almost manic grin cross his face.  “I call Bedivere.”

 

“Kay?”

 

“As soon as I have my new knees ready, I’ll be back in the fray.”

 

“Good.  No one else?  Merlin has said Cardoc the Fifth was interested in returing.  Is he still?”

 

Merlin nods.  “He’s ready to go, but would like to confer with you first.”

 

“Call him in.  He’ll be our new Lamorak.  All in favor?”  A chorus of muted “ayes”.  “That leaves five empty seats.  I don’t want this to be hasty, so I’ll give us a month to find approximately five candidates each.”

 

Lancelot raises a hand.  “Could we extend it to two months?  A little more time might make all the difference.”

 

Harry considers it.  “Six weeks.”

 

She gives a short jerk of her chin to indicate her affirmative.

 

Merlin speaks up.  “We have to branch out from the old pools.  Get with the times.  Shop around.  We’ve been too inbred.  Universities, awards, criminal records, anything that indicates exemplary.”

 

“Exemplary crooks don’t get caught,” Eggsy pipes up at last, his words clipped.  It hurts more than it should.  He allows them a moment to chortle.  “Military?”

 

“Perfect,” Merlin agrees.  He nods in Lancelot’s direction.  “Don’t overlook the ladies, gentlemen.”

 

Lancelot blushes furiously as she stares down at the Table.

 

“Percival, have anything to add?  About anything?”

 

“Not really.  I don’t speak.  It’s my thing.”

 

“Alright then.  Six weeks, have your proposals report to HQ, you know the drill.  You can manage thirty brats, Merlin?”

 

“I’m quite certain _I’ll_ be fine.  Whether or not they emerge unscathed?  That’ll be up to them.”

 

“Any other business?”  Eggsy remains fixated on his lap while the others shake their heads.  “Very well.  I suppose we adjourn.  Galahad, would you mind staying back a moment?”

 

It curdles slightly beneath his tongue.  His mantle, passed off to another.  A ridiculous curl of jealousy curls through him, along with the reflex to confront his imposter.  But Eggsy is not trying to replace him.

 

It is almost a mad rush for the door, with the others throwing knowing looks over their shoulders.  Eggsy comes to rest in front of him, silent.  Staring down.

 

“So, Galahad.”

 

Eggsy focuses on the toe of Harry’s shoe and only gives a small nod to indicate he is listening.

 

“Lancelot’s bastard son.”

 

“Oi, don’t give Rox more ammunition.”

 

The uneasy tension lessens by a few increments, not gone, but enough to maneuver in.

 

“I wondered if I should get Cardoc instead when Merlin told me you was alive, cause of the whole didn’t-trust-Arfur-at-first-then-he-did thing.  But he told me you would rav’ver I be Galahad.  S’at alright wiv you?”  Eggsy finally looks up, and his eyes are soft and mossy and Harry can’t think for a while.  Something within him stares and breathes, and takes over.

 

“I can’t say it’s not _slightly_ upsetting, but more so that I had no part in it.  By the time I woke up, it was already done.  I would have liked to knight you myself.”

 

Unbidden into his mind comes the historical tradition of kneeling to accept a knighthood.  Eggsy kneeling before him, head bowed and neck bared as Harry taps him on each shoulder with his umbrella.  Then Eggsy looks up, eyes glittering, and moves forward . . . .

 

Somehow a handshake and clap on the shoulder feels too impersonal.

 

Eggsy’s voice is soft.  “I wanted to wait, but they needed me out there.”

 

A stabbing ache comes across his diaphragm, tensing up and making breathing impossible.  “Quite understandable.”  A thought flits through his scrambled mind.  “What did Merlin tell you?  About my condition?”

 

“Just that you had a cracked skull and was recuperating.  He sent me off on a mission while he went and got you.  I asked where you was, and he just said ‘Home’.  I stopped by your place, but you wasn’t there.  Where was you?”

 

Harry’s lips feel numb as they move without his consent.  “Cheltenham.  My ancestral home.  I haven’t been there much since my mother died.”

 

Eggsy’s voice is oddly husky.  “Wos it nice?”

 

“It always is.  The estate is right on the boundary of the Cotswolds.  Very beautiful in the late summer.  I spent a lot of time riding, against Merlin’s instructions.  The fields were full of wildflowers like you don’t see anywhere else.  Terribly lonely, though.”

 

There is ice in Eggsy’s smile.  “Maybe I’ll get to see it some time.”

 

“Of course.”  And it hits him how divided they are.  The house has a ballroom that hasn’t been used in a century which could comfortably hold the flat Eggsy had been raised in.  While Harry had slogged through fields and hills and sparse forests, Eggsy had navigated back alleys and fists.  One very large difference lay between them: Harry had been raised to be above nature, while Eggsy had become a part of it.

 

He tries to imagine Eggsy in his mother’s powder blue tea room, with white sculpted plaster forming garlands across the walls and ceiling, fussy trays holding cakes and fruit tarts, and finds he can’t.  He can not comprehend Eggsy in the fortress of his childhood, with its rules and formalities.  The best Harry can imagine is Eggsy on horseback, flat cap pulled low over his eyes and shotgun tucked under his arm, poppies and lavender lightly scenting the air.  A Barbour, not a hunt coat, the waxed cotton keeping him warm from the autumn chill.  One among nature.

 

And the full understanding of his attraction hits him like Valentine’s bullet.  Despite his softness, Eggsy is every bit the animal Harry is.  Eggsy is _aware_ of the brutalities of man, but refuses to sink to those levels.  Suddenly all Harry’s ironclad belief in the superiority of instinct falters.

 

The Hemingway he had once quoted at Eggsy flits through his mind, which recalls to a random line from a novelty song he heard once:

 

_“Isn’t life pretty?” Ernest Hemmingway once said_

_Then he put a bullet through his head_

 

Harry has no faith in humanity.  Had no faith in anything, but now has faith in Eggsy.

 

It is a dangerous prospect.

 

Eggsy stands before him, digging his poisonous toes in the shallow pile of the rug, uncomfortable and unaware of the darkness that has dedicated itself to him.

 

“I gotta go,” he mumbles apologetically.

 

Harry watches him leave, the questions he was supposed to ask fluttering and dying like summer butterflies at his feet.

 

 

 

Human interaction encourages little physical interaction.  Touch is a threat, a temptation.  Nothing gives a better feeling of superiority than the feeling of life leaching out from beneath your fingers.

 

Eggsy is flush, professional, and Harry wants nothing more than to _touch_.  Peachy soft skin, the startled breaths that ease from his wind pipe, storing precious oxygen as he tries to edge around the corner to see if the coast is clear.  With a tiny noise of victory, he whips the glasses off his face, and holds them so that the camera peers right down the hall.

 

 _“Two guards, fifty feet down the hall on either side.  Armed, but nothing drawn.  Quickly,”_ Merlin hisses as Eggsy plunks his glasses back on his nose, pleased with his ingenuity.  Harry has not seen this pleasure in him since their day together.  Eggsy refuses to speak with him outside of work.  Not uncommon for Kingsmen, but his rebuff hurts.

 

Then, Harry remembers what he said in his loo.  So he can’t blame him.

 

It hurts on both sides, but the time has yet to come.

 

As one, in perfect synchronization, they move out into the hall.  The guards notice, but a bullet is already punching into one’s windpipe, while the other gets three rounds to the groin and a spinning kick to the head.

 

Eggsy is not efficient in battle.  He wastes bullets, peacocking with his twists and pirouettes as he slams into bodies, but Harry can’t reprimand him.  He does the same thing, albeit to a less agile extent than Eggsy, and is far too mesmerized to do anything other than gape.

 

 _“You’ve got company coming_ ,” is the only warning they get before another three men round the corner, arms full of illegally sold weapons.  One fires off two potshots that bounce harmlessly against Eggsy’s lapel, but it’s enough for Harry to blank out in rage.

 

He comes back, maybe ten seconds later.  The man who shot at Eggsy is choking on his blood, his own hunting knife embedded in this spine via this throat.

 

The reptile took over, and is still growling and snarling.  _No.  Mine mine mine._

 

Eggsy has displaced the other two, and meets Harry’s eyes.  There is something there in those eyes that Harry can’t determine.

 

After a moment, Eggsy drops his chin to scope the rest of the hall.  “C’mon.  There’ll be more.”

 

The voice purrs in agreement.  It wants to touch.

 

Harry nods and clenches his fists.

 

 

 

He sits, in his empty home, filled with pinned butterflies and bone china, the trappings of civilization, and can only think of bright eyes glinting and shifting like river water, of breathless eagerness, of soft skin and stubbornness.

 

He thinks of Eggsy, filling the jagged edges with his malleable softness.

 

He buries his sorrow in whiskey, and his loneliness in the night.

 

He wakes at 3;48, clawing the sheets as he searches for a warmth that is not there.

 

Every waking moment away is filled with agony.  Sleep holds no respite, with dreams of betrayed eyes on a lovely face, and blood spilled on scrubbed boards.

 

And every moment spent in his presence is filled with the desire to take, to claim, to own.  To take possession of the lovely softness for his own.

 

 _Mine mine Eggsy mine_ the voice growls, and Harry has trouble resisting.

 

 

 

_Through the window I see no star:_

_Something more near_

_Though deeper within darkness_

_Is entering the loneliness:_

 

 

 

But he does resist.  He is nothing if not controlled.

 

It is nearing winter by the time a respite from the onslaught of missions arrives.  His brief period at the house has left him missing it, so he heads back to Gloucestershire.  Tentatively, he calls Eggsy to extend an invitation, but Eggsy is still caught up in Tel Aviv, so Harry forwards the details, stressing that it is informal and in no way should Eggsy feel obliged to show.

 

He leaves the gates unlocked, just in case.

 

On his third day, he is returning Trajan to his stall when he notices the door connecting the horse stables to the converted portion of the building that now acts as a garage is open.  The silver Audi belonging to Eggsy sits unassumingly in a formerly empty converted stall.

 

The passageway from the stable block is made of glass and is poorly insulated, letting the chill make his breath billow before him.  He slips through the door into the low hallway that connects to the entrance hall.  The kitchen is to his left, and someone is banging around, presumably riffling for the tea.

 

Eggsy has the kettle on the burner, and is digging through the various canisters and jars on the sideboard.

 

“Try the teal octagon on the shelf,” Harry calls out.

 

Eggsy does not turn around, simply pulling the aluminium container down, peeking in to be sure of tea bags before nodding.  “Fanks,” he calls back, voice slightly hoarse and worn out.

 

He is wearing a green jumper atop a starched dress shirt, buff trousers, brown oxfords, his hair sharply parted.  His collar is open, but that is his only concession to being causal.  Harry feels a panging loss for the caps, popped polos and track jackets that were Eggsy’s uniform.  Now he looks indistinguishable from a rich prod at university.

 

“You didn’t have to get so dressed up,” Harry tries lightly.

 

Eggsy snorts.  “Had to make a good impression if you was entertaining.”

 

“No, just you.”

 

“Why?”

 

It’s bitter, laced with things Harry wants to read one way but will go mad if he reads them wrong.

 

“You said you might like to see the house.  And I could use the company.  We both need a break.”

 

Eggsy nods, peering around.  “S’lot bigger than I expected.”

 

Harry quickly peels off his riding gloves and coat, hanging them on a hook along with his hat, before moving over to the cabinets to get down tea cups and shortbread.  “Far too big for a single man?”

 

Eggsy is smiling lightly as he plays with the tea canister.  “Yup.”

 

“It’s an enormous waste of land.”

 

“S’not like you can just bulldoze a house this old and put up a block of flats.”

 

“I currently have it willed to the National Trust.”

 

“Why’s that?”

 

“Who else could I leave it to?”

 

Things are quiet after that aside from the whistle of the kettle.  They set their tea to steep, and Eggsy goes to work on the shortbread, licking the buttery crumbs from his fingers.

 

“You didn’t bring JB,” Harry notes.

 

“Didn’t have the heart.  Raised him from a bloody pup, then he gives me the cold shoulder in favor of my sister.”  His grin is slightly wicked, like he would ignore the dog in favor of his sister as well.  “So,” Eggsy begins, giving little kitten licks to his palm, “wot are we gonna do?”

 

“What would you like to do?”

 

Eggsy considers it for a moment, and takes some time to drink deeply from his teacup.  “Well, one of the things they was saying ‘bout me during training was I was some soft shit that never shot a proper gun in my life.  Didn’t have the heart to tell ‘em ‘bout the Marines.”

 

“Perhaps you should’ve.  Scare some sense into them.  Public school toffs can survive Sandhurst, but not the Marines.”  Eggsy lets out a reluctant chortle.  “Want to try a spot of hunting, huh?” Harry asks with a grin, willing Eggsy not to question why there’s kit that will fit him perfectly waiting in the stables.

 

 

 

Eggsy preps their guns as Harry goes about readying their horses for their ride, and trying his best not to _appreciate_ the tight fit of the riding trousers.

 

“Her name is Biscuit Crumb,” Harry grunts as he arranges the saddle blanket on her back.  “Biscuit for short.  She’s old, had a few foals, quite feisty, but she recognizes an amateur rider.  She’ll give you a nice easy ride.”

 

“I don’t _want_ an easy ride,” Eggsy mumbles under his breath, the remark obviously not meant for Harry’s ears.  “Wot’s it wiv you and food names for your pets?”

 

“I don’t give _all_ my animals food names,” Harry steps over to the other horse.  “This is Trajan.”

 

“Trojan?”

 

“No, _Trajan_.  Thirteenth Roman Emperor, and the one who expanded the boundaries of the Empire of their greatest extent.”

 

“So, you got one horse who’s an emperor, and another who’s food?  And a stuffed dog who’s food?  What’re the other horses’ names?”

 

“Poppy Seed, MacGuffin, Bipsy, and Entropy,” Harry reels off.

 

Eggsy’s eyes go wide.  “I wanna ride Entropy.”

 

“Biscuit will get sad, now that she’s all dressed up to go out, won’t you girl?” Harry directs at the horse, who snuffles at the tone of his voice.  “Anyway, Entropy needs an experienced rider, or she’d throw you.”

 

“Got more experience riding than you know,” Eggsy mumbles as Harry helps hoist him up into the saddle.

 

 

 

The wind is brisk and damp as they set off from the house, but the late autumn sunshine is bright in the mid-afternoon, highlighting the bright oranges and yellows of the trees.  The horses' hooves crunch softly through the piles of fallen leaves.  The mists that cling through the morning have dissipated, leaving the sunlight glaring.

 

As soon as Eggsy gauges that Biscuit knows her way, he lets go of her reigns and leans back, eyes closed as the sun shines on his face.  Harry thinks of calling out a warning, but Eggsy is the most coordinated human he knows, and can see the clench of his thighs where he grips the sides of the horse.  So Harry lets Trajan decide the path, knowing Biscuit will follow his lead, and relaxes to watch Eggsy.

 

He looks completely at ease here, in the riding boots and Barbour Harry chose for him.  Shades of warm brown, save for the waxed jacket, which is a soft sage that he hoped would bring out the green in Eggsy’s eyes.  His flat cap is a muted green-brown-red-blue tartan, and it fits him.  The entire ensemble fits him.  Almost too well.  Harry knows where his ancestors were born going back several centuries, because they had occupied the same space.  They have remained tied to the land, like humans have been from the beginning of time.

 

He wonders where Eggsy might have lived if not for the steady march of progress.  Some coal mining town most likely, but Harry likes to imagine Eggsy would have assisted in his stables, or . . . something.  Making them connected throughout time, and not some cruel twist of fate.

 

“So,” Eggsy begins without opening his eyes, “how’d we go about hunting?”

 

“You should know the basics already, just instead of men we’re looking for foxes.”

 

Eggsy nods and grips his gun tighter.

 

Trajan takes them along the usual paths, padding quietly through the leaves, silent but for crystallizing breath.  Then, when they reach the edge of a field, they see one.

 

Sniffing about in the drying grass, presumably for rodents of some kind, the fox is bushier now than it was several months ago.  The same fox that he couldn’t kill.  Harry can tell.  Something alerts the creature to their presence, and its neck twists to look.

 

Bright amber eyes meet his, and all he sees is Eggsy.

 

Harry hears an echo in his mind:

 

_Shadow lags by stump and in hollow_

_Of a body that is bold to come_

_Across clearings, an eye,_

_A widening deepening greenness,_

_Brilliantly, concentratedly,_

_Coming about its own business_

_Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox_

_It enters the dark hole in the head._

 

He has enough holes in his head.

 

“Well,” he murmurs tightly, strung along the wire that determines the future, “aren’t you going to shoot it?”

 

Eggsy lowers his gun, and something within Harry breathes.

 

“S’a fox’s fault that I’m even here,” Eggsy mutters quietly, staring vacantly into the distance as the fox bounds into the tall yellow grass.

 

“How so?”

 

Eggsy smiles ruefully.  “I stopped Rott’s car so I wouldn’t hit one.  Told my mates to run and rammed the police car so they could get away.  ‘F I hadn’t, might never ‘ave called the number.”

 

_And now where would the world be?_

 

He imagines Eggsy, bleeding on the floor of his local pub, glass embedded in his knuckles, his eyes glassy.  He, his sister, and his mother chopped up with the butchering knife. 

 

Harry tries to imagine a world with no Eggsy, and finds unrelenting pain at the mere concept.

 

“Well, you can at least say you’ve tried hunting,” Harry says before clicking his tongue for Trajan to head back to the stables.  Eggsy continues staring for the longest moment, then allows Biscuit to turn and lead him back the way they had come.

 

 

 

Evening sets as they stable the horses.  Harry wonders how long they were out, but dismisses the thought.  Time passes like the human invention it is when one is temporarily submerged in the natural world.

 

Eggsy slips away to explore the house as Harry sets about fixing dinner.  Nothing exuberant, just some pan-seared fish and chunky vegetables.  He chooses a bottle of white wine, and places it all on a wheeled cart as he sets out in search of Eggsy.

 

Harry finds him in the library, poking through a pile of worn leather books Harry left discarded on one of the desks.

 

They don’t say anything, just set about arranging their dishes on one of the leather-topped tables.  Eggsy toys with his fillet of sole and pushes the limp fried onion around his plate.

 

“Why’re we eating in here?”

 

Harry doesn’t know why, so he shrugs.  “Is there any rule saying we can’t?”

 

“’F there is, I wouldn’t know it, would I?”

 

“You do understand that placing names on rooms and designating them for certain purposes is just some nonsense made by rich people?”

 

“Yet I have to learn them,” Eggsy mutters dully.

 

“To camouflage yourself, yes.”

 

“Thought you said we was gentlemen?”

 

“Yes.  But man is not gentle.”

 

Eggsy grins, blinding, brilliant, as he says “What does that even _mean_ , Harry?” and shoves a mix of capers and onions in his mouth.  Harry grips his sliverwear, thinks of all the ways he could use the utensils to slaughter the young man across from him, and disregards every one.

 

“Do you honestly think I know everything I say?  Eggsy, we need to have a lesson about ‘bullshit’.”

 

They laugh, and the reptilian voice purrs.

 

 

 

“We ever going to talk ‘bout what we said in your loo?” Eggsy asks later, halfway through a bottle of whiskey Harry had been saving for a special occasion.

 

The smoking room is dark like it is supposed to be, worn red velvet and dark wood stained darker.  The curtains are drawn, and despite the years, the musk of cigars remains embedded in the walls, wood, and fabric.

 

Harry tilts his head back and closes his eyes, swirling liquid in his crystal glass, the base of his skull thumping against the carved scrollwork of the oak, sending jarring spikes of pain through his still-tender grey tissue.

 

It pains him to speak.  His voice is hoarse.  “What do you want me to say?”

 

He breathes heavily through his nose, opens his eyes warily, and sees Eggsy regarding him, his expression expectant.  They are seated at opposites ends of the couch, which was made when people were a lot smaller, so there is only a couple of feet of unbreachable air between them.  Cautiously, broadcasting his movements, Eggsy moves his leg to gently nudge his toes into the bone of Harry’s ankle.  “Well,” Eggsy takes a small sip of whiskey, a light smile teasing at the edges of his lips, “could apologize.”

 

Eggsy’s face consorts into the exaggerated pout that so often graces his face as he shrugs.  Laughter hisses out of Harry’s lungs, and he tilts his head back so he once again thunks against the wood.  It takes a while to recover, and by the time he manages to open his eyes once again, Eggsy also has his head tipped back, lounging comfortably.  Eyes alight with mirth and something Harry both desperately clings to and tries to put out of his head.

 

“I want to get my apology right, so tell me what I should apologize for, exactly.”

 

“Well, you promised to sort everything out when you got back.  And by the time you got back, things was already _sorted_ , so you could start with that,” Eggsy reaches out and taps his fist to Harry’s chest.  On an inexplicable impulse, Harry catches the arm before Eggsy can take it back.  He sets his glass down on the end table, and he hears Eggsy follow suit, but he doesn’t look up, still mesmerized by the wrist he grips lightly.

 

“I’m sorry I got shot in the head and Merlin is too efficient,” Harry tries, but it sounds weak.  He lowers his voice to a whisper, though there isn’t anyone around to hear.  “What is it, really?”

 

“Did you – did you really do all this –“ Eggsy gestures around vaguely “- ‘cause of me dad?  S’at all?”

 

His voice is impossibly small, like he can’t comprehend the idea of him being worthy of it. 

 

“I said things, Eggsy.  We all do.  Sometimes, when you want to hurt someone, you don’t say the things _you_ believe, but instead exploit the doubts of your opponent.  I won’t lie to you and say I didn’t feel you had similar promise to your father, but it was more of a contributing than deciding factor . . . .”  His words peter off.

 

“Opponent?” Eggsy croaks, eyes closed, and Harry is struck by the intimacy of their position.  Eggsy is limp and open, half sprawled against the couch, while he allows Harry to hold and trace the delicate bones of his wrist.

 

“You can’t say we weren’t, at that moment.  You were betrayed and lashing out, and I was frustrated and disappointed.  Not at you, I can see that now, but at my own ruddy confidence in you.  I believed you could become someone you are not, and I didn’t have all the details.  I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger if Chester King asked me, not on a dog.”

 

“I would ‘f you asked,” Eggsy lets out in a rush of breath.

 

Harry swallows, and his fingers twitch where they hold Eggsy’s.  “Good to know.  But I apologize, for what it’s worth.”

 

“You’s always worth it,” Eggsy says softly, and Harry can’t do anything but close his eyes and brush his lips against the tender flesh at the back of Eggsy’s wrist.  He feels the matching hand press against his sternum, and opens his eyes to Eggsy much closer than before.

 

Harry knows the meaning of “balanced on the edge of a knife” better than most, and that is where they are.

 

“What?” Harry asks, because that is all he can say.

 

“Let me see inside,” Eggsy begs in a hushed voice, creeping closer by tiny increments.

 

“It’s dark inside.  There’s a reason.  You won’t like what you see.”

 

“Can’t be all bad.  We’s human, ain’t we?”

 

His thin lips are plush and soft, he tastes like whiskey and caper, and it makes the reptile, the animal, the demon roar.

 

 

 

We have been taught that heaven is for the chaste.  How many saints were made for the simple act of maintaining virtue?  Far too many to know.  Religion likes to suppress natural human impulses for the sake of control.  What the religious the world over will have you believe is that all sex except for reproduction is lust and sin.

 

But what of love?  Love never seems to enter their considerations.  Marriages were never made on being in love with another human.  Archaic marriages have selfishness written all over them: money, heirs, fulfilling God’s plan.  What man ever needed multiple wives?  Doubtful they fell in love with multiple women.  How is having three women who you feed, shelter, and clothe in return for the use of their bodies and whatever money their father will give you to take them off his hands, holiness?  And why is sodomy with a man for whom your blood thrums and whom you cherish with every cell in your being a sin?

 

But Harry has always known he is destined for hell, if there is indeed anything beyond our fragile lives as sacks of flesh on a water-covered rock endlessly revolving around a sphere of burning hydrogen and helium in the endless emptiness that is the universe.  It is honestly ridiculous to govern your life based on the shady ideals set two millennia ago by men whose only goal was control.  So he allows himself to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh.  He drinks to excess, eats pork and rabbit, and murders with relish.

 

Loses himself in the body of a boy half his age, and it is ecstasy beyond all imaging.  The religious can keep their white robes and golden harps and songs of praise.

 

Eggsy is far above any heaven imaginable.

 

Harry shifts to allow Eggsy to eagerly climb into his lap, but Eggsy keeps their kiss soft and sweet.  The reptile wants to lash out and bite and _claim_ , but Harry shushes it.  It’s getting what it wants, it can afford some modicum of control.

 

Gentling his lips open, Eggsy slips his tongue into Harry’s mouth.  He gives a delightful little shudder when Harry sucks softly, wanting to taste every bit of _Eggsy_.

 

Deft fingers make quick work of the buttons of his cardigan and shirt, and soon smooth hands are spanning Harry’s ribs, fingers twining with his chest hair, cupping the bottoms of his shoulder blades and pulling him closer by small amounts.  The reptile that lives beneath him, wearing his skin, arches his neck and tries to pull Eggsy closer, and Eggsy makes tiny desperate noises.

 

Eggsy is gasping for breath, but Harry cannot remove his lips

 

 _Eggsy Eggsy Eggsy mine Eggsy_ the voice chants.

 

Harry trails his mouth down one of Eggsy’s cheeks before latching onto the thick cord of his neck.  Eggsy moans and twists at the sharp nip of teeth, a breathy “ _Yes Harry_ ” slipping from his lips.  Light fingers trace along the mottled scar tissue on Harry’s brow, and something far away and much darker that pure lust trembles and shakes, wanting to push the touch away, threat, warning, stop.  But it’s not a threat, he tells the dark twisted thing in his chest, Eggsy doesn’t _want_ to hurt him.

 

 _He hurts hurts already burns_ the voice protests, but this in not from the lizard, but from something twisted and black located in the cavern of his ribs and contains his vital organs.  His heart, he thinks belatedly, but Eggsy is already pulling away.

 

Somewhere, Eggsy managed to remove his shoes and socks, and now stares Harry down as he yanks his jumper and shirt.  Not quite enough to be sculpted from marble, but Eggsy has the subtleties of musculature that the ancients would have appreciated.  Harry wonders what god they would have had Eggsy depict.  Apollo, he thinks, seeing the glint of sunlight in the dark night of the smoking room.

 

He only allows Eggsy to get that far before he leaps up, shrugging out of his shirt and cardigan, letting them fall to the floor as he moves to stop Eggsy from wrestling with his belt buckle.  He takes Eggsy’s lips, open whiskey kisses, and peels the belt and trousers and pants away from Eggsy’s legs, leaving him flushed under Harry’s inspection.

 

Eggsy slips away, sprawling out on the Edwardian couch, and Harry feels he should draw him or something.  He arches his brows, grins cheekily, beckoning Harry forward with a single finger.  Harry lets the lizard growl, tugging off his own trousers and pants and kicking off his shoes before placing all his weight on Eggsy’s body, pressing him down into the worn velvet and claiming him.  Eggsy sighs into Harry’s mouth as they rut together, bodies knowing the dance that has been vital for millennia.   

 

Harry _tries_ to be tender and be begins to kiss his way down Eggsy’s chest, before he moans  “ _Fuck_ , Harry, you ain’t gonna break me.”

 

“Well, you asked for it.”

 

Eggsy gasps harshly as Harry bends his legs back, folding him in half, but it doesn’t compare to the noise that Eggsy makes when Harry dives in and pierces him with his tongue.  It’s choked and cut off, and that kind of desperate noise that people who are on the edges of insanity make.

 

Insanity is good. 

 

Eggsy tastes like Eggsy, musk and softness and it is perfect and Harry can’t stop the finger that slips in after his tongue.  Eggsy is panting, whimpering, as Harry continues, lapping, getting Eggsy as wet as possible.

 

Harry pulls back for a moment, and Eggsy gasps in relief.  Harry works the inside of his lips against his teeth, gathering a good amount of saliva, before returning, fastening his entire mouth around the pucker of pink flesh and Eggsy _yelps_.  The lizard growls in approval.

 

“Need some of mine?” Eggsy asks, breathless, but not quite as _incoherent_ as Harry would like him.  He looks up, and it’s _obscene_ , tilting his head to see around Eggsy’s flushed cock and spread thighs to see his cheeky grin.

 

Harry lets the lizard use his voice box, and a purely human noise comes from his throat.  Eggsy closes his mouth and works his lower jaw as Harry prowls up his sweat-slicked body.  Their lips meet closed, then open, as Eggsy transfers as much of his own saliva as possible.  He tries to keep Harry there, but Harry slides back down.  Eggsy whines until Harry locks eyes with him, and allows the drool to drip down his chin, pooling in Eggsy’s asshole.  Eggsy curses incoherently, twisting his neck in frustration as Harry dives back in once again, this time with two fingers and his tongue.

 

Harry loses himself for a while, reviling in the taste of _Eggsy_ , feeling like everything has been leading to this, his entire life of frigid emptiness.  Eggsy _does_ burn, in his warmth and brightness, and Harry can’t tell for the life of him if it is because Eggsy is unnaturally warm, or if he has just been cold for so long.

 

Eggsy is clawing at his back, making pleading noises as he tries to pull Harry up.

 

“ _Now_ , fuck, please _, please_ Harry _,_ ” Eggsy begs, kissing along Harry’s jaw.  He revels in it for a moment, then lines himself up, before halting.

 

“Are you sure?  I don’t have anything put spit.”

 

Eggsy’s growl matches the lizard.  “’F you couldn’t tell, I like it rough.  And dirty.”

 

The sound that issues from Harry’s mouth might be described as inhuman, but Harry knows it is the purest, most base human that can be found.

 

He tries to go slow, noting there is indeed a tad too much friction for Eggsy to be very comfortable, but he gasps and makes all the right noises.  They figure it out, Harry thrusting sharp and deep, but making sure to hit perfectly to make Eggsy scream.

 

It’s fast, and rough, and dirty, and very very human.  It’s said sex isn’t actually very romantic, which Harry fully believes, but this is not romance.  It is Harry doing is best to embed himself in Eggsy’s body while Eggsy burns him to the core.  _Romance_ isn’t _love_ , and they are both smart enough to realize that.

 

This is celestial.

 

Sweat builds up, making the slide easier.  Eggsy’s making tiny whimpering noises with every breath, and Harry pushes harder, knowing he will not stop until Eggsy is as much of a mess as Harry has been over him for so long.  The hand he had griped on Eggsy’s hip moves over, taking him in hand, cupping him, slipping a finger in along with his own straining cock.  Eggsy breathes sharply, then his eyes roll as he calls out.

 

Harry gives another thrust, another, then all goes white, and only the animal remains.

 

 

 

The voice in his head changes.

 

It terrifies him more than the declarations of possession did.

 

But then Eggsy snuffles and curls into Harry’s side so they can fit better on the narrow couch, buries his nose in his collarbone, and lets out a little noise of contentment.  Harry can feel his lips parting, and soft, warm breath gusts around his neck, carrying Eggsy’s benediction: “Love you, Harry.”

 

He doesn’t think as he says it.  “I’m yours.”  He wraps his arms around Eggsy’s sweaty back and buries his nose in his hair.

 

 _Yours_ , the reptilian voice promises.  _Always yours._

**Author's Note:**

> Look ma, I finished a Kingsman fic! Wait, Mother, no, do not look.


End file.
